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Classic dungeon crawling awesomeness!

Anvil of Dawn, a classic DOS-era dungeon crawler with first-person perspective, sprite graphics, a vast and rich world to explore, and dozens of hours of great and motivating gameplay, is available on GOG.com for only $5.99

Every fantasy land needs a hero, it seems. There's always an evil entity of some sort that menaces the realm and its people. Surprisingly, the people never stand up to it. They prefer to wait for a group of adventurers, or even just one champion who knows the importance of wearing leg armor around archers. Inevitably someone comes to the rescue and saves the realm one spider-infested cellar at a time. Schematic as it may sound, we love to relive those adventures over and over again. Even if one dungeon looks pretty much the same as any other, you still get this rush of excitement when making your first steps on its dusty floor. It's not about originality of the concept. It's about the involving gameplay, that lets you forget about the world around you. Here's a perfect game to do just that!

Anvil of Dawn has everything you ever loved about 1990s role-playing games. It presents you with a large and diverse gameworld, full of monsters and enemies to slay, riches and powerful items to loot, quests to carry out, weapons to wield, spells to cast, and an evil overlord to challenge. It was praised for its great pacing allowing to keep the gamer entertained and intrigued, always presenting him with something new to do and achieve. The imaginative sprite-based graphics, solid gameplay mechanics, and many classic gameplay ideas make this title a shining example of well executed cRPG design that makes us call its period "the good old times". Highly recommended!

If a true old-school cRPG experience is what you're looking for, you simply can't afford to miss Anvil of Dawn, for only $5.99 on GOG.com!
This one immediately migrates from my past days to my wishlist.
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oasis789: Could you explain this logic please? What exactly are you trying to maximize by minimizing magic use to healing? I found playing an earth magic caster quite fun.
Weapon use XP is acquired in combat. Enemies do not respawn, so whatever gets hit by your spells does not count toward the weapon use xp track. On the contrary, magic xp is acquired simply by casting spells: at enemies, at yourself, at walls, it doesn't matter. (Incidentally, casting healing spells with the stick for some reason gives crazy amounts of XP.)
Post edited May 15, 2013 by Starmaker
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oasis789: Could you explain this logic please? What exactly are you trying to maximize by minimizing magic use to healing? I found playing an earth magic caster quite fun.
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Starmaker: Weapon use XP is acquired in combat. Enemies do not respawn, so whatever gets hit by your spells does not count toward the weapon use xp track. On the contrary, magic xp is acquired simply by casting spells: at enemies, at yourself, at walls, it doesn't matter. (Incidentally, casting healing spells with the stick for some reason gives crazy amounts of XP.)
I see. Is it necessary to maximize total XP in order to beat the game? Playing solely melee with healing spells would be a really diminished game experience. One would think that with such a lovely range of spells available, one would try to use them sometime... :)
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hunvagy: As for Dungeon Hack.. curses to those who decided it's "sequel" Slayer was only released on the 3DO.
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GeeLW: Yeah, that's too bad, as Slayer is REALLY damn awesome. it's one of the reasons I bought a 3DO back in 1996 and still break it out every so often.

Hell, I'd LOVE to see a Kickstarter for a decent remake one day but using the same or similar graphics as the original game just to make the graphics hounds scream but also allow for the game to run on many platforms with a smoother frame rate plus a lot more art assets and creatures. Granted, the variety in Slayer is pretty impressive, but it woyuld be nice to see different terrain height, pits to fall in to and some other stuff that would make it even more interactive...
Grimrock 2 with random generated dungeons *drools*

As for what you mentioned before, every version of Dungeon Hack I've seen had that silly intro with the voices :) "Shaodws, swamp, gloom and wine.. a fog does rise to cloud my mind, to hide the price I seek to find" Hell, I still know the whole damned thing word by word xD

Have you tried Deathkeep? I was trying to desperately find a PC version but nobody seems to have that one anymore :|
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fooziex: Awesome! This is one I've been waiting for. Next up, Dungeon Hack? Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession / Stone Prophet?
Sadly, the rights to all of the SSI-era D&D games are in limbo, which means that we might not ever see them in a legal capacity... then again System Shock 2 came out so I believe anything can happen. If I could get a legal, digital copy of Dark Sun for $6 that'd be pretty great. That game is basically the proto-Temple of Elemental Evil.
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Starmaker: Weapon use XP is acquired in combat. Enemies do not respawn, so whatever gets hit by your spells does not count toward the weapon use xp track. On the contrary, magic xp is acquired simply by casting spells: at enemies, at yourself, at walls, it doesn't matter. (Incidentally, casting healing spells with the stick for some reason gives crazy amounts of XP.)
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oasis789: I see. Is it necessary to maximize total XP in order to beat the game? Playing solely melee with healing spells would be a really diminished game experience. One would think that with such a lovely range of spells available, one would try to use them sometime... :)
No, not at all. (I even won AoD as a snob wizard who refused to get his hands dirty, with one plot-mandated exception.) It's just something that strikes me as spectacularly bad design.
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Bloodygoodgames: I think Stonekeep was the third game I ever bought and almost 20 years later is still one of my favorite games of all time. Bought it again last year on GOG and it holds up SO WELL. An awesome dungeon crawler in every sense.
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tarangwydion: This is probably already mentioned somewhere up above in this thread, but I think if you like Stonekeep you really should give Anvil of Dawn a try. I myself have not played Stonekeep but I remember back in the day the review in Home of the Underdog actually mentioned this game being better than Stonekeep.

And no matter which character you choose from the line up, you'll meet the other characters along the way. Quite interesting IMHO.
Thanks, I intend to :)

Will probably pick it up tomorrow after I see what else goes on sale in Friday's sale.
Why I love Ubisoft on GOG more than outside? :)
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Kabus: Why I love Ubisoft on GOG more than outside? :)
Probably because the only thing "Ubisoft" had to do with their games on GOG is one guy who is GOG's contact with them
...oh and a bank account
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Kabus: Why I love Ubisoft on GOG more than outside? :)
Because in here it's not Ubisoft? >.> They just happen to own every IP 3DO (co)developed.
I found my old Anvil of Dawn CD in my CD pile just a few days ago, but I'll probably buy this again on GOG just for the extras ^^
Oh, my God, I was just thinking about this game! Then I decide to visit GOG and it's right here! What are the chances?

Wait... you guys can't actually read my mind, can you? Because... Uh, I can explain about what I was doing that time with those action figures... It's not really what it looks like, even if my brain says the opposite...

Ahem, anyway... Anvil of Dawn!
Woah!

This game looks awesome!

First of all, you can be a woman of colour! Thank you! I am Latina and it's so nice to be able to play a woman of colour. These developers had wisdom and were very smart! Very cool.

Second, woah, this game looks great! I love these types of games. Look at that armour the first types of enemies you fight wear, studded bracers, spiked shoulder pads, boots with skulls on it, sword covered in blood! When they die they melt to their bones, then their bones crumble to dust! Only in an olde school game would you have that, that's awesome!

It's not often I get excited over a game release, like never, but here I am excited over a game release that's nearly 20 years olde. Now this is my type of game! Are there more games like this? Why aren't they being sold? I never heard of this game before, where are they!?
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Kadlin: Are there more games like this? Why aren't they being sold?
Maybe this would be helpful?
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Kadlin: Now this is my type of game! Are there more games like this? Why aren't they being sold? I never heard of this game before, where are they!?
Games with similar gameplay include the Lands of Lore series, Stonekeep, Legend of Grimrock, Arx Fatalis, Ultima Underworld 1&2, the Ishar series, several others that are probably in limbo due to license issues because they're based on the D&D franchise (Eye of the Beholder series, Ravenloft series, Menzoberranzan, Dungeon Hack), the Dungeon Master series (no idea why it's not here), the Elder Scroll games (Arena and Daggerfall are distributed for free), as well as the Might & Magic and Wizardy series (with the difference that in the latter two the combat is turn-based not real time).

But I agree, Anvil of Dawn is one of the most enjoyable and one of the lesser known of this type. :)
Post edited May 17, 2013 by Leroux